The Revolving Door and Access to the European Commission: Does the Logic of Influence Prevail?

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• Author: Sharon S. Belli,Jan Beyers
• Date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13486

The Revolving Door and Access to the European Commission:

Does the Logic of Inf‌luence Prevail?

SHARON S. BELLI and JAN BEYERS

Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Antwerp

Abstract

This article analyses to what extent and under which conditions revolving door practices relate to

access to the European Commission (EC). The revolving door hypothesis is analysed by combin-

ing two data sources: a dataset with publicly available records about the meetings between interest

organizations and senior EC off‌icials and evidence collected through the Comparative Interest

Group-survey (CIG-survey).It is especially in professionalized organizations, where staff and

organizational leadership dominate, that we observe a signif‌icant positive relationship between

revolving door practices and access. In contrast, the extent to which the membership decides on

political positioning and advocacy strategies has no impact on the relationship between revolving

door and access. These results show that the revolving door is primarily connected with a logic of

inf‌luence, implying that revolvers are especially advantageous for professionalized organizations.

Keywords: access; European Commission; interest groups; lobbying; revolving door

Introduction

Access is generally considered one of the most crucial currencies in interest group poli-

tics. From an interest group perspective, obtaining access to the decision-making process

is often seen as a precondition of political inf‌luence (Binderkrantz et al., 2017;

Bouwen, 2002; Eising, 2007). From a policy-maker’s perspective, organized interests

provide helpful information in exchange for access to the decision-making process.

Hence, interest representation depends crucially on the ability and the opportunity to ac-

cess policy-makers. These capabilities, and the propensity to gain access, are not only rel-

evant at the micro-level, but they also affect the general structure of systems of interest

representation. The overall access pattern produces a bifurcation between insiders and

outsiders, whereby political institutions and government agencies recognize insiders as

relevant players (Halpin and Fraussen, 2017; Maloney et al., 1994).

This article aims to shed light on how the revolving door, the hiring of former public

off‌icials by organized interests (LaPira and Thomas, 2017), shapes the ‘insiderness’

(Fraussen et al., 2015; Maloney et al., 1994), measured as the extent to which groups ob-

tain access. Most scholarship on therevolving door presumes that hiring staff from the

public sector impacts access positively. Various explanations have been put forward.

One explanation emphasizes the value of relational capital and argues that organized in-

terests that hire from the public sector enjoy more access as their staff can exploit previous

political connections and ties with policy-makers (Bertrand et al., 2014; Blanes i Vidal

et al., 2012; McCrain, 2019). This perspective views the revolving door as an instrument

through which wealthy interests gain access. Another explanatory perspective emphasizes

the value of human capital (Coen and Vannoni, 2016; LaPira and Thomas, 2017;

JCMS 2024 Volume 62. Number 1. pp. 186–204DOI: 10.1111/jcms.13486

© 2023 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Shepherd and Young You, 2019). Whereas the relational perspective has a strong quid pro

quo nature and stresses the immediate value of revolvers, the human capital perspective is

more nuanced. It argues that organized interests that hire from the public sector do not

buy networks in exchange for access but seek staff to strengthen their political capabili-

ties. Namely, by hiring former public off‌icials, organizations acquire skills, resources

and competencies, which are valuable assets to inf‌luence public policy. These skills in-

clude political intelligence and knowledge about the internal dynamics of public institu-

tions, which makes groups more capable to strategize on the best way to reach common

objectives with policy-makers and to perform a role as legislative allies (Hall and

Deardorff, 2006).

Although both approaches are not mutually exclusive, our account f‌its more into the

human capital perspective. We argue that the nexus between access and the revolving

door should be analysed within a broader perspective that accounts for how organized in-

terests professionalize, structure their advocacy efforts and manage their connections with

the constituency they aim to represent. By delving into these connections, we demonstrate

that hiring revolvers correlates with an increased political capacity and, consequently, af-

fects the propensity to gain access. More specif‌ically, we ask the following question: To

what extent and under which conditions do revolving door practices facilitate access to

the European Commission? Theoretically, we draw from organizational studies and, more

specif‌ically, use the concept of organizational social capital,def‌ined as a resource

ref‌lecting the type of social relations an organization seeks to build and maintain (Leana

and Van Buren, 1999). Based on this perspective, hiring from the public sector and pro-

fessionalization are mechanisms through which organizations seek to improve their social

capital. One typical challenge for the social capital view is that organized interests play in

multiple arenas. On the one hand, they seek to build and maintain relations with their con-

stituency, members and supporters (the logic of membership). On the other hand, they

seek to interact with policy-makers and inf‌luence public policy (the logic of influence)

(Schmitter and Streeck, 1999 [1982]). There might be tension between both objectives.

For instance, groups with access are tempted to seek political compromises to maintain

their insider status. The resulting moderation may conf‌lict with some outspoken or radical

views that might prevail amongst key parts of the group membership. Given that we an-

alyse organized interests, we need to consider how hiring from the public sector varies

across organizations and how this f‌its with the logic of membership (membership involve-

ment) or the logic of inf‌luence (seeking and gaining access to policy-makers). To put it

differently, we expect that the revolving door affects access butthat this relationship is

conditional on which logic prevails in interest organizations.

Our overarching hypothesis is that revolving door practices affect the propensity to

gain access to the European Commission (EC hereafter). This hypothesis is analysed by

combining two data sources: (1) a dataset with publicly available records about the meet-

ings between interest organizations and senior EC off‌icials and (2) evidence collected

through the Comparative Interest Group-survey (CIG-survey hereafter). Our results con-

f‌irm that hiring from the public sector has a signif‌icant positive relationship with access

and that the extent to which groups are professionalized moderates how the revolving

door shapes access; namely, the impact of the revolving door is especially pronounced

amongst highly professionalized groups. However, our results also show that groups with

strongly involved members do not prof‌it from the revolving door. Overall, our results

The revolving door and access to the European Commission187

© 2023 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.